


Scar the Earth

by calculatingMinutiae



Series: The Ghost of Glimwood Tangle [6]
Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon (Main Video Game Series), Pocket Monsters | Pokemon - All Media Types, Pocket Monsters: Sword & Shield | Pokemon Sword & Shield Versions
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Anxiety Disorder, Arguments, Conflict Between Friends, Depression, Gen, Ghost!Allister, Ghosts, Grief/Mourning, Language of Flowers, Minor Character Death, Young!Opal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-11
Updated: 2020-01-16
Packaged: 2021-02-27 09:21:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,975
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22214725
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/calculatingMinutiae/pseuds/calculatingMinutiae
Summary: One week, she doesn’t come to visit.A story about working things out. Or, more importantly, what happens when you don't.
Relationships: Onion | Allister & Poplar | Opal
Series: The Ghost of Glimwood Tangle [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1576204
Comments: 22
Kudos: 102





	1. Queen of Spades

**Author's Note:**

> Hey all, this has got to be the biggest thing I've written for TGoGT so far. So big, in fact, that it's coming in three parts. I'm afraid they collectively will be the last fic update for a while since the semester is starting back up and School will be Happening. I'll probably still post doodles and concepts and such to tumblr [@2sp00ky](https://2sp00ky.tumblr.com/), though, so feel free to shoot me an ask. Basically: in advance, I am not dead, no worries.
> 
> Big thanks to [alientongue](/users/alientongue/pseuds/alientongue) for reading things over and, frankly, encouraging me to finish it in a timely fashion. (Also check out their [Resurrection Plant](https://archiveofourown.org/series/1595251) series because it is really cool and very wholesome imo.)

One week, she doesn’t come to visit.

Then another.

And another.

The entrance to Ballonlea is lined with white lilies, plunging the once bright and whimsical town into mourning. The town’s gym leader, de-facto authority, beloved friend, philanthropist, and mother, has suddenly and unexpectedly passed. 

Long live the gym leader, a newly-orphaned lass of eighteen. 

Whispers around the town can’t come to a consensus on how to think of young Opal. To some, she’s a spirit free as the spritzee soaring from tree to tree overhead, a togekiss breezing through Ballonlea and spreading just a touch of wonder wherever she walks; to others, she is a  _ menace _ . She does not follow curfew, does not respect  _ rules _ , reveling in chaos just as much as her infamous moregrem. The girl trains in the  _ Tangle, _ by Xerneas, having no respect for nature (dedication to her homeland) and a penchant for disaster (a vital connection with nature.) Opal is an enigma. 

What Opal _is_ differs from what she was and had been her whole life to present date. She was innocent, and youthful, and a touch naive; she _was_ too naive. She _was_ enamored with the beauty in the world around her, in the people around her, in life and love and everything betwixt. If all the world were truly a stage, it would be what you made of it. She would be unfettered, unfazed, and unafraid. She _was_ and _would_ _be_ many things.

She  _ is _ terrified.

She’d always known of death. Her closest friend (an imagination, a false spectre, pity the poor, lonely girl) died decades before she was born, after all, but she had never quite shaken death’s hand and faced it head-on until she’d started making funeral arrangements. 

The last place she wants to be is in a meeting with the League chairman, eyes dulled by contempt and impatience. 

The gym has been her playground since she was a young girl, and she, in turn, runs it like so. She has only had her position for a week and already three different challengers have come by, all of them losing their matches, two crying by the end. Her gigantamaxed Grimmsnarl, so says the chairman, has been frightening the poor things, and while he must acquiesce that it’s the nature of fairies to have a certain indelible tendencies can he  _ please _ stop cackling once their opponents run out of pokemon? It’s customary to wait to dynamax until your  _ final _ pokemon, you know, not your first, it hardly seems like you’re giving them a chance here….

She has simply stopped listening to what she certainly has no interest in hearing. Nod, nod,  _ yes sir right away sir, _ it’s disappointing just how much of being a gym leader is bureaucratic ( _ and just how right Allister was about it _ , she recalls coarsely,  _ but I’m not ready to hear him go off about it right now _ ) yes-work and public pandering rather than, say,  _ leading _ or even just  _ being in the gym _ . 

“And,” says the chairman, as though Opal hasn’t visibly let those bright-blue eyes of hers drift into an empty corner of the ceiling, “You’ll be expected to pick up production of the annual play. It should provide some well-needed levity.”   
  
“ _ Levity?!” _ Opal straightens her back, ramrod straight, a spark jolting her expression into a grimace. “Do you have the  _ slightest clue _ how labour-intensive a single technical rehearsal is, let alone a whole  _ week of them _ ?”

“Well,” says the chairman, glaring down at the girl across the table, hands folded firmly before him. “Then you’ll have to make certain they run smoothly.”

She should have kept daydreaming. 

The following week is rife with technical rehearsals, a funeral, and swarms of impending press asking  _ Oh Opal, she was a wonderful woman, Opal, The region is so  _ sorry  _ to have lost her, _ all empty words.  _ What was she like in private? Her personal life? Was there another caretaker at home? They say you’re reckless, did she not give you enough attention?  _

The rumors and fabrications come hot off the presses without her needing to say a word, her own silence condemning the name of the late gym leader by default. She keeps her head held high just long enough to lock her door behind her, her windows, her bedroom door, and slide down to the floor creasing the pleats of her satin black skirt before she’ll let herself break down. 

It’s nothing to them and that’s the worst part. “It’s the talk of the town today,” says Stow-on-side’s psychic gym leader about a formerly living, breathing human being, patting her shoulder without an ounce of reassurance. “But they’ll leave you be sooner rather than later. Public gets captivated in a good tragedy, but it never lasts long.” It will be old news. Her last remaining family, her best of efforts, the absolute nightmare of the past one hundred sixty eight hours? No longer entertaining. 

She’ll show them something entertaining. 

She’ll show them something they won’t forget for a long time.

She does away with the gym puzzle. There is no more fantastical play-acting at the role of a hero, for there are no heroes, nor is there a damsel to rescue. The flighty princess dons her armaments to become a fortified queen giving commands from her tower.  _ Questions _ , rather, determine whether a challenger is worthwhile, prompting honesty in the heat of the moment. Should they want to get through to her, the puppets have to dance. 

*

Her struggles have not gone unnoticed.  _ She’s a legacy, _ says the nurse to the weary business man.  _ Besides, not a soul in town is prepared to challenge her for the title.  _ It all seems so flippant, the changes to the whims of power and the powerful. You simply do not understand it. 

Not because you are a child. Well, you _ are, _ and only the kind that’s been so for five or so odd years, but you can already perceive things that none of the adults in your life want to acknowledge. They gripe over taxes and politics and working boring, tiring jobs for boring, tiring people when they think you’re out of earshot, but you know (the faeries always find out.) 

You know that, as a girl of five years, there are many things in this world you are not ready for, and for many of them in turn no one will prepare you. They are not prepared themselves, after all, to pass on the knowledge, and are unlikely to figure it out ‘til they themselves sit on the brink of the abyss (but the faeries know, the faeries tell you everything.) You know that they hurt. The dreadful poison of thistle needles and rose thorns (oh no, oh no-no-no can’t have that, that won’t do) plague the flesh of the Grown and Learned, and over time they come to corrode.

You know that Miss Opal is sad. So dreadfully sad, in fact, crying when she thinks none can hear. But the faeries know. The faeries tell you everything. 

You hop down the ledge from behind the Pokemon Center, and start off into the forest. Of all hearts to love their color, Miss Opal’s should hardly burn out so quickly. She is always so full of life and light. You do not want to see her cry anymore.

So you head blindly into the Tangle, of course, from whence you came. Perhaps you can remind her of the world she fell in love with. 

*

“Hello?” you hear a call, the voice small and the Tangle quickly absorbing it into its darkened depths. “Helloooo….”

This voice is not Opal’s.

You tighten the strap of your mask, and dare to peek around the corner. 

The voice calls out again, blithe, seemingly uncaring whether there is an answer or not. Ignoring it has no affect, footsteps crunching closer, and  _ closer _ . You can feel each step in the back of your brain. You know these woods better than the back of your hand, and yet  _ another _ child is entering carelessly into its traps. You cannot let this stand.

Oh, but who would listen to  _ you? _ Opal doesn’t. Why should this little girl?

You’ll have to embrace your namesake, then. For her own good. 

Your eyes glow a deep shade of lilac from behind your mask, floating a good foot off of the ground. You practice letting your fingers hang loosely when your wrists lay limp in front of you. A  _ snarl, _ perhaps. 

Sinistea trembles a little bit, looking embarrassed for you purely through the movement of its eyes. 

You sigh, dejected, and hold back with the Frankenstein’s monster routine. You’re positive you’ll have your time, some day, with a little more conviction, but you’ve learned over time to take Sinistea’s word when it tells you _you look like a doofus._ (Opal laughed at you. Some day you’ll learn to laugh too.)

“Helloooo?”

The sound creeps closer. 

You raise yourself higher above the ground, and set your brow to look as furious as you can. This has to be  _ good _ if it is to work. 

You jump out in front of the child. 

“Who  _ dares _ disturb the spectre of the Glimwood Tangl —”

You do not finish your thought, because this child is staring up at you in abject horror. This is… good! Good, this is what you’d meant to do. Scare them away, scare them out of here!

You… you hadn’t particularly thought about what’s supposed to come  _ next. _

“T-the uh… s-ss _ oul of these woods _ , n-no, h-ang on, nn, these trees will, w… will steal your  _ bones!  _ A-and I’ll, I’ll s-s-steal, a-way your soul! Thass’it! Right away, a-nd you won’t see your family ever ever again, and there’s nothin’ you can do about it! You want that?” You smile too wide behind your mask, trying to ignore the way your chest squeezes as though it has any right to emulate the living, right now. 

Oh jeez. The kid is crying. 

She’s frozen in place, big watery tears in her eyes, and you suddenly regret ever thinking you could do anything. 

“H-Hey, ‘s alright….” You float gently back to the ground, hands up for her to see. 

She doesn’t respond. 

“You’re alright, I-I was, was just kidding… about all that, stealing stuff....” 

She shakes her head lightly, eyes travelling across your face and into the bushes. You trace the path in apprehensive steps. 

“Oh.” 

You wave at a little morelull, attempting to paralyze its prey. You  _ tsk, tsk, tsk _ at it. 

“Sinistea, do you think you can give it a talking-to? Terribly rude, stunning people like that.” Sinistea, sloshing a little in its cup, spills onto morelull with a  _ hiss  _ of steam. 

The mushroom branch wanders off. 

“You alright, then?” You turn to the girl, who is slowly, lethargically rubbing her eyes. 

“Yea, just on a hunt for some good glowin’ mushrooms. Maybe some flowers. Miss Opal likes pink the best, doesn’t she?”

“Purple, actually, a… why? What’s wrong with Opal… is she well?”

“Miss Opal is very sad,” she proclaims, so matter-of-fact. “Everyone is very sad.”

"Well… maybe. M-aybe I can help you.” You try to smile to her to signal your good intent, but you’ve forgotten that your mask obscures just about all of your face. “…Opal is a friend of mine, c-can't. Can't let your friends stay sad, yeah?"

The two of you walk down the path, gathering all the flowers you can find.

*

“She’s been hunting challengers for sport,” such a little girl says, curling back bright pink oleander petals. “That’s what the faeries said, anyway, and I know they never lie.”   
  
“They don’t tell the whole truth, either,” you respond, setting harebell with white heather. The two of you together have come up with a bit of a messy-looking bouquet, but you know it should tell her precisely what you need her to hear. 

“Well, she certainly hasn’t been kind to them. Grimmsnarl made them cry,” she says while you shuffle about the arrangement. It has to be perfect. It  _ has _ to be, especially as you wince.

You aren’t surprised, no. You’re still disappointed in her. 

_ Forget-me-nots, _ the thought pings in the back of your mind, grouping in the tiny blue flowers among the larger blooms. Yes, that’s just what you needed. A dash of remembrance, to know someone is rooting for her; maybe if you cheer loudly enough, if she hears you, she won’t feel the need to try so aggressively, anymore. She might remember to be  _ herself _ . 

“Seems it’s grimmsnarl that needs to take a step back, then....” You tie off the stems of your concoction with long braids of grass. “There. I know where her cottage is, if you wanted to head home… someone’s probably awful worried about you.”   
  
She ponders for a moment, looking at your mask with intent. You can’t be certain what that intent  _ is _ , exactly, but it’s kind of making you sweat and you’d very much rather she not do that. 

“I think I had better come with you,” she says, gesturing for the bouquet. You seem a little disappointed, but allow it nonetheless. Something poking at the back of your skull insists she seems to know something you do not. 

She leads the way back to Ballonlea and out of the Tangle, flowers held in her hand like a torch lighting her way through a cave. The wild pokemon, as though repelled by its power, leave the two of you be on your trek out of the forest. 

The girl is the one to knock on Opal’s door. 

_ Knock, knock, knock.  _

No answer. 

“M… maybe she’s out,” you hesitate, swaying slightly in the gentle breeze. 

The girl shakes her head. 

_ Knock knock knock, _ and no answer again. 

“P-probably a bad time. Maybe we sh-should come back, later.”

“What are you afraid of, Allister?”

“... How do you….”

“What are you afraid she’ll say?”

“I’m not.”

“She needs somebody,” says the enigmatic little girl, so certain. “And you’ve got the best shot of all of us.” 

You get it in your own head to try. 

_ Knock, knock, knock. _

The door swings open, but when you turn around the little girl is gone.

“Opal,” you beam, trying to put on the most chipper facade you can, for her, even if your face is obscured. You  _ are _ happy to see her alive and… scowling, after all. 

She picks up the bouquet from her doormat with a huff.  _ Damn kids….  _

She closes the door. 

“... Opal?”

You aren’t sure what you expected. Sure, she’s had a rough time of it lately, but she genuinely looks terrible.  _ Terrible, _ here, a word meaning ‘you haven’t removed your mascara for four days and have plainly been rubbing your eyes’ or possibly ‘your hair is in snares and tangles and I know you to be far too proud to go without acknowledging that unless you have genuinely decided not to give a damn about  _ anything _ anymore’; you’ve never known Opal to look genuinely terrible before. Even when she’s looked a mess, you’ve always thought her pretty. 

She may just  _ genuinely _ need some time alone, and yet… hasn’t she had that? Some space? You can’t let her set herself apart like this. You cannot let her face these things alone, even if you have no idea what to do or how to help. 

With a deep breath and a quiet prayer to nothing in particular, you struggle to dissipate into your incorporeal form. Just intangible enough that you can phase through her front door. 

You don’t know what healthy mourning looks like. You’re fairly certain this isn’t it. 

There are about a dozen bouquets of withering pink roses scattered along the credenza, accented with a garland of greeting cards. “Get Well Soon!” morphs in hand-written accents along the line, abruptly leading into “Deepest Sympathy.” These flowers too end up on the table, scattering as they’re thoughtlessly chucked into the corner simply to get them out of her hands. 

She puts her head down.

You, in spite of your every instinct, put your hand on her shoulder. You’ve learned this is reassuring. You want to reassure her, if only she  _ lets _ you. 

She is the first to speak.

“What do you want,  _ Allister. _ ” There's toxicity in her voice that’s never been there before, the cobra spitting venom before the mongoose can strike. 

“It’s not what I want.”   
  
“ _ It’s not what I want _ ,” she mimics your voice, right there, chipped nails receding into fists. “Oh, of  _ course _ if I were gonna get a visit from a ghost it’d have to be  _ you. _ ”

“Opal, come off it, I… I know it’s been hard, lately, okay? And it’s natural you’d be upset, but —”

“Allister,” she says, raising her head higher, standing up straight. She refuses to look at you. 

“Can you hear her?”

“Can. I hear, what?” You don’t understand.

“You can hear ghosts, right? Like you. Things dead, and soon to be forgotten. So can, you hear her?”

“O-Opal… m, my powers let me hear dead  _ pokemon _ , I….”

“Tell me, Allister, and tell me true.  _ Can you. _ ”

“... No.”   
  
“Then what the hell is the  _ point of you _ ?”

As she storms off to her room, all you can do is watch.

*

She’s never been this way before. Opal has never said something so nasty, so vile, never been so short of temper; then again, you’re only an exception. People change. 

You can only keep yourself from screaming until you reach the entrance to your hollow. From there, you no longer have the reigns, fire injecting itself into your veins, the barbs of her words hooking themselves in to the meat of your heart and  _ twisting, turning, she doesn’t want you anymore. She’s grown up, now, grown up without you, and you are useless to her. You are so useless, and you were too stupid to know it. So, stupid, stupid-stupid-stupid.  _

There is not a soul in the woods to hear your cries, muffled and drowned in the profound silence of the Tangle. You half expect to be beaten by a hattrem for daring to be so powerless to the whims and whiles of your suffering psyche, but the multileveled  _ lack _ only confirms what your churning thoughts have settled upon.  _ Nobody can hear you. Nobody will hear you, either. Nobody cares to. What do they need, with a thing like you? _

_ Can’t even find the right words to say  _ (pity the poor, lonely child.)  _ Can’t bring back the  _ more deserving  _ dead  _ (can’t have that, can’t have that.)  _ No, you’re nothing but a child stayed past his expiration date. Of all ghosts to persist in the land of the living, of all ghosts to haunt these woods, to remain stagnant forever, why is it you? Why not someone who knows what they’re doing? Someone widely known, someone loved by many and all, someone truly remarkable? Someone who was gone too soon. Someone who deserves it. Someone with a family that cares enough to search for them, seek them out, wish on a lucky star that brings a worthless carcass instead. Why is it you that’s here, instead of Opal’s mother? _

You don’t know. You have no answers, other than you’re sorry. You’re sorry. You’re so, so  _ sorry, okay? Can things be okay, now? _

_ Please? _

But you know it isn’t that easy. It isn’t, because she is right. There  _ is _ no point to you, wandering through the Glimwood Tangle, occasionally talking to ghosts. The past is gone, so literally gone, and it left without you decades ago. You try to keep up, but always end up overwhelmed. You always end up  _ back here. _

Maybe you should stay here, then. 

For the foreseeable section of eternity, you’ll simply stay. You’ve done it before. When the world decides it needs a right and proper sacrifice, you’re certain, it will wake you. Until then, you’ll remove yourself from the equation. You can do no more damage if you keep yourself at bay. 

You lull yourself into a deep, deep slumber.

*   


Healing takes time.

Healing takes time Opal didn’t think she  _ had _ , until Arlette finally told her that she’s been working too hard and she’s asked the chairman to temporarily suspend Opal’s position.  _ You can’t keep running on empty, sweetheart, _ says the kind woman, and at this stage Opal is so exhausted she has to admit that she’s  _ right.  _ She is  _ so right, _ and it gives her time to reflect.

Time to stay at home, time to cook up some curry that does not taste like wheezing’s beard, time to look through and process her grief. Old photos of her mother and a younger, brighter Opal, always wearing her pearls and never losing her smile. She’d never thought it important to look at pictures before, but there are stacks on stacks of boxes beneath the sofa that’d beg to differ. Her mother hardly appears in these photos at all, instead finding the moments she’d wanted to treasure lay with her sweet little alcremie and her mischievous daughter. 

She remembers these days vividly. She’d spent them playing outside with Allister, not that the boy shows up on camera terribly well, and every one of their adventures is its own story. The day they went to the Pokemon Center. The day they bothered the old shopkeep about his old postcards. The day he got his first mask. The day she did her damnedest to sculpt a replica that her mother wouldn’t mind going completely missing for a few days and question every gym trainer about until you had to confess and play up your cuteness to avoid losing your backstage privileges. The day you went to get ice cream. 

She laughs, only to think back.  _ Oh, Allister…. _ There’s one photo of her, one where she’s gotten grass stains on her dress and dirt all over her hands and in her hair, where she’s triumphantly holding up her bag. The memory had slipped her mind, truthfully, but the sight of such a light shade reminds her of the pastel pink bag in the back of her drawer. 

_ Ah. The day we found his corpse. _

It’s sickening, in hindsight, but she was so small, back then. It’d seemed a right proper thing to do, to protect him from the morgrem, but now it seems… immoral. To keep him from being lain to rest. He does deserve rest, does he not? His only sin’s been to tell you what you already know, somewhere deep in the pit of your chest, and you’re finally willing to listen to reason. Then again, surely he could choose that for himself?

You ought to offer it to him, really, but. You can’t bear the thought of losing somebody else so soon.

In fact, you think, you ought to apologize. If to no one else, then to Allister. You could really use his listening ear about now, if he’ll lend it to you. 

You dare to tread back into the Tangle, only to find him curled up in a fetal position, hands over his head as though bracing for a storm. 

“Alli?” You knock gently on the tree’s bark, a rap-tap-tapping. 

He does not stir.

Sinistea emerges from behind his head, flashing you a sad sort of frown.

“Oh? What’s that mean, then?”

You, much to your chagrin at this moment, do not speak pokemon. Sinistea spills a bit of scalding tea on Allister’s face, but he does not stir.

The realization strikes you all at once. You feel sick to your stomach.

It’s happened before. Allister works himself up into a tizzy, one that his overloading head simply can’t handle anymore, and he just. Stops. Stops cold, stops dead, in need of a good rewinding. He remains frozen in time for days at a time, as though sleeping, presumably sorting himself out. It took him three months to come back, last time. You never did ask if he dreams.

“He’s still out, huh?” You nervously smile, patting the little teacup sympathetically. “It’s alright, just… there’s something I need to tell him. When he wakes up. I’ll be back later, ‘kay Tea?”

Sinistea gives you a wobbly smile, hiding back to defend the sleeping form of its companion.

Next time, you bring a blanket.

No change. 

You’ll give him time. 

A month, no change. 

Two. Three. 

Nothing. 

The seasons come and go, and there’s no sign Allister has so much as turned over every time you check up on him. 

When winter comes, you give Sinistea a choice. It ducks into the refuge of your dusk ball. You place it under his hand, and hope.

_ Hope. _

One day, you stop checking. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "King of diamonds, king of spades!/  
> Hades was king of the kingdom of dirt/  
> Miners of mines, diggers of graves/  
> They bowed down to Hades who gave them work"  
> \- Epic Pt.I, Hadestown (2010)
> 
> About the Flowers  
> \- In Victorian England (about 1837 to 1901), floriography, or the language of flowers, was often employed to send messages between people as a part of social etiquette (or, in some cases, to send a message that may not otherwise be as acceptable). [Here's my main source for this fic](http://www.allflorists.co.uk/advice_flowerMeanings.asp) . Relevant passages include:
> 
> -Oleander (caution) is also a bright pink, horribly toxic flower. Not the kind of person to strive to be.  
> -Harebell/Bluebell (humility, grief, submission)  
> -White Lavender (protection, wishes will come true, tranquility)
> 
> "You need to calm down, think of yourself realistically, and breathe before you go too far (and do something you regret). I know it hurts, and I know it's hard, but there's nothing to be done to change what's already happened. Please be careful. Please be safe."
> 
> -Forget-Me-Nots (remembrance, faithfulness)
> 
> "We are still friends."
> 
> -Pink Roses (perfect happiness, indecision)  
> -Wilted Roses ("I would rather die")


	2. Petal on a Stream

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Allister sleeps. Opal grows up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "You, the one I left behind/  
> If you ever walk this way/  
> Come and find me lying in the bed I made"  
> \- Flowers, Hadestown (2010)
> 
> [Cover](https://2sp00ky.tumblr.com/post/190281418235/all-of-a-sudden-he-cant-recall-just-what-hed)

It takes twenty-two years for him to wake himself up again.

Twenty-two years, and he doesn’t age a day, sheltered from the heat of the sun, a sliver of moonlight shining through the hollow and into his eyes. He finds himself covered in a blanket he does not recall, threadbare and moth-eaten, with a dusk ball that is not his own cradled in his hand. He lifts it up, away from weary, sleep-bruised eyes, and with a featherlight touch presses into the button. 

“S-Sorry, buddy. You’re free, now.” His voice cracks through dry lips, reminding itself how to speak. Sinistea whimpers, splashing scalding tea at him.

It  _ burns. _

“Ah, okay,  _ okay! _ ” he crawls out of the hollow, rubbing his eyes to gaze upon… the same-old Tangle. It looks just as it always does, always has, and probably always will. “I, I-I’m up, how long was I out, anyways?”

_ Too long _ , says Sinistea, flinging itself into his chest.

“W-oah, okay.... Sorry I, took so long?” he smiles, hugging the little teacup close to his chest. There are still a few residual tears, but he blinks them away. They fall into the tea. 

_ Opal wanted to tell you something,  _ Sinistea sputters. 

It echoes in his mind, time and time again.  _ Opal. _ The Opal that spat solid fire in his face,  _ that _ Opal? He has half a mind to.

To forgive her. And the other half a mind to forgive her, too, his entire being is focused on forgiveness, she was obviously under distress.  _ Besides, _ he cracks a smile under his mask, if only because his face can’t quite decide what other expression to make.  _ She wasn’t wrong. _

“What is it, then?”

_ She never told me _ , it laments, yawning from a nap of its own.  _ I’m not sure how long it’s been… we could go ask? _

“Right,” he nods, wobbling on newfound feet. He takes a breath in, breath out. It’s harder to keep corporation just after a rest. He doesn’t actually  _ feel _ quite rested at all, actually; just emotionally drained and numbed so it cannot hurt anymore, or if it does he no longer has the strength and stability to do anything more than watch it roll off of him and out of his life. So it goes with his physical form, apparently, thanks to Sinistea. He finds himself stumbling like a drunkard through the Tangle, if only because his feet pick arbitrary intervals at which they stop acknowledging the ground.

The trek to Ballonlea feels entirely too long. 

*   


Once he makes his way to town proper, he’s shocked to see how much and how little it’s changed. There’s a sign painted in bright, psychedelic colors and curvy bold strokes declaring the Pokemon Center’s central location. The modern day is one largely the same, only with aviators and bell-bottomed pants even the  _ ladies _ are wearing, good heavens; the modern day is much like the past, only the silence of Glimwood Tangle is abuzz with the rhythm of rock and roll from an AM radio perched on a windowsill.

“ _ There must be some kind of way outta here, _ ” it croons, as he steps out into the lights. The people, as perhaps he should have expected, do not see him — or, if they do, they show no signs of it.  The streets are desolate, at this hour, whatever hour it happens to be, and he is completely unimpeded on his way to the gym.  _ Opal’s _ gym, he reminds himself. He ought to refer to her properly.  _ Miss Opal, _ perhaps. She is a gym leader now, after all. 

He finds he can simply walk through the unlocked door, sure as a summer breeze. 

The fluorescent lights flicker on the ceiling of a mostly-dim room, making him squint even behind his mask. There isn’t a soul backstage, nor is anyone in the stadium that has grown two or three sizes since he saw it last. All he finds is bright pink carpeting and more plastics than he could have identified before he woke up. Even the telephone looks strikingly different, now, scrunched into a chunky pink plastic case behind the front desk. 

No gym trainers. No Opal. Not even a calendar. 

The only way he can reassure himself that Opal is still  _ here, _ in Ballonlea, and still  _ exists _ are the posters lining the walls of Ballonlea gym, featuring a striking woman sitting atop one of the many, many layers of a gigantamaxed alcremie. He’d know that sly smile anywhere. 

In fact, there are a dozen or so such posters for the gym, hung up along the hall opposite to a number of play posters. All, presumably, are different productions to have taken place in Ballonlea’s gym over the years, promoted just as much as the gym challenge itself. He could read the performance dates, sure, but he’s far too distracted by the way she’s  _ changed _ over the years. He remembers her as a child, a lass of ten, but the woman in the latest of these photos looks to be older than his father had been. She looks content. So…

Happy. 

She is happy, and he is obsolete. 

All of a sudden, he can’t recall just what he’d come back here for.

She’s made it. She has _moved on,_ sweeping up the pieces of her shattered life and making a name for herself. _You_ _don’t know what decade it is,_ let alone what year it is, let alone what exactly you’re trying to accomplish, here. She’s grown up. She has learned to live on without you there. She has _changed,_ and it stings to see your slight little reflection in the poster glass and remember that you can never do the same. You’ll be little old nine-year-old Allister forever, a plaything, a child’s toy, and everyone moves on without you. Your _family_ did. Now your best friend, too.

Everyone you meet will grow apart from you. 

You saunter back to your hollow, clinging to the dusk ball that is not yours. Maybe there is nothing to stick around for, and no people to stay by you, but you still have Sinistea. You still have your teacup, and a silent prayer  _ her _ spirit is clinging to it the way you cling to this forsaken forest. They’ll always be there.

Maybe you need to get your head straightened out. Maybe… just a nap….

*

Opal never treks out to Glimwood Tangle, anymore. 

She blames her arthritis, her advancing age (she can hardly stand the thought of seeing him), she is  _ eighty-five years old, for crying out loud _ (frozen in the soft and sweet repose she’d dreamt of, at one time) it is simply  _ absurd _ to expect (a secret between him and the thicket) she’d be fit enough (waiting for a gallant princess to come and wake him up.) Poppycock. Boulderdash, all of it. 

She sits at her desk, carefully stitching up a Mimikyu’s disguise. She hardly thinks about it anymore, a figment of her adolescence, and yet with this ghastly fairy the Stow-on-side gym leader has asked she take into her care ( _ you’re more qualified than I, _ said the psychic-type leader, with just as little affirmation in her monotone as her father's) reminds her acutely of him. 

It bristles at the creak of the stairs, playing in the windowsills and daring to jump from roof to roof, when she is not careful to watch it; it hides beneath the cloth it clings to for dear life, and yet once she’d shown it she meant no harm it insists on playing fetch with the stick it calls a tail and showing her all of the trinkets it collects from around the town. It’s so shy, yet it revels in her company. It  _ trusts _ her. 

He  _ trusted _ her. 

She puts Mimikyu’s disguise aside, instead looking closely at an old chunk of ivory. It’s been over a century now, since he died, the bone still its same old milk white as it always has been. It’s pure sentimentality that’s made her keep it this long. She’d always meant to give it back to him, to let  _ him _ decide its fate, but he is trapped in a long spiral of his own emotion.  _ She  _ put him there. 

She cannot hang on to this memory any longer. No, she needs to take this back where it belongs. She will banish this specter from her house and home, the guilt, she will, it will be  _ done _ it will be  _ over  _ will be….

No. Not like this. Like this, the wild pokemon will pick it apart before he wakes up, if he  _ ever _ wakes up again. She’d come to terms with the fact that he wouldn’t wake up within her lifetime years ago, but the thought of subjecting him to be consumed by the forest  _ again _ seems cruel. She’s certain Dimple would think so, should she ask. This bone fragment is beyond an antique, but she has just the jeweling experience to make it glitter like a stone, glazed to be inedible. Like making up costumes back at the gym, making this bone fragment into something decidedly un-tragic, maybe even  _ beautiful _ is right in her wheelhouse. 

A labor of love, she turns a shard of a long-gone corpse into a pendant on a soft ribbon. It’s precisely the kind of silky smooth satin that wears with time, a dusky dark purple, already fraying at the edges. She’s certain that, by the time he gets to see it, it will look just as  _ old _ and  _ spooky _ as a haunted house ride implies a ghost’s relic should. It’ll make him so happy.

It will. She has to believe it will. Some day.

Mimikyu insists it accompany her on her journey into the Tangle.

It bounds its whole way into the forest, managing to hop through the tall grass without ever slipping from its disguise. It also seems far more jovial than its companion, Opal carrying the charm lower than an albatross on her head, umbrella stabbing into the ground periodically as she walks through her well-beaten path. It’s odd, really. It doesn’t seem very heavy. 

Mimikyu pauses, and turns around to greet her with a question. 

“Dearie, I do not care how much you think you understand. I’ll be fine. I promise.” She smiles, looking between Mimikyu and the ribbon in her hand.  _ Although…. _

Keeping Mimikyu in her line of sight, she lets Mimikyu step over the ribbon. The charm hangs from the neck of its disguise. Seems it was right.

It’s not very heavy at all.

*

She’d lost track of the exact spot, over the years, but once they arrive, she realizes it looks exactly the same. So many things have happened in the last seven decades, and the Tangle hardly budges. She recognizes the blanket she’d stuffed into the den, some wayward hope it’d bring even a little comfort to the boy or his faithful Sinistea. It’s considerably worn since last she saw it, though, mauled by the natural forces of decay; it seems to have fared better than poor Allister. 

The den is otherwise empty. 

Mimikyu doesn’t seem bothered, poking the head of its disguise out of the hollow before jumping out to greet her.  _ Peek-a-boo. _

She cannot bring herself to laugh. 

She doesn’t know what happens to spirits. Legend says there are pokemon that have dedicated themselves to ferrying souls between this world and the next, or pokemon acting as a gateway between the living and the dead, but she cannot imagine that Allister has let himself be spirited away with no sign of him left behind. She refuses to believe he would run away with such  _ finality _ in the gesture without leaving so much as a good-bye.

Perhaps he simply. Faded away. Dissolved, into pixie dust. 

She takes the charm from around Mimikyu’s neck, but she hesitates. This is the last place she saw him. Presumably, this is the last place  _ anyone _ saw him, since nobody else seems to be able to see him at all. This is his final resting place, as it ought have been one-hundred-twenty-five years ago. It is the only place for this trinket to rest. 

So why does she pause?

Why does she slip the ribbon into the pocket of her dress, and kneel with her head down at the base of the tree for a good few minutes?   
  
Mimikyu tries headbutting her like a neglected espurr, but she does not budge. 

She simply takes her time to pay her respects before standing up, dusting herself off, and turning to leave in silence. The hour grows late. She lifts her head to call Mimikyu to her side, but it seems to be distracted by something.

That  _ something _ being the hand of a masked boy smoothing over the fabric of its patchwork disguise. Mimikyu melts into his hand as though they’d never been apart, nevermind having just met. He even dares to pick it up, a feat  _ she _ has yet to accomplish, chatting away with the walking ragdoll and sitting against a tree. He falls back through it, once.

“H-eh, sorry, still gettin’ myself back together, I guess,” he rubs the back of his neck, fidgeting with the cuff of his sleeve. 

She gawks. He does not notice until she speaks.

“... You.”

_ Then _ his blood runs cold. 

“... A-re you lost?” he tilts his head a little too far to one side, blinking up at her shock-white hair. “I, I know these woods. C-Could help you back, to, t-to….”

“Allister.”

So it  _ is, _ then. Even when old age weathers her features on their own, there’s something eternally youthful to her smile. The one he’d know anywhere. 

What to  _ say _ to her?   
  
“I. I’m sorry.” He stands, shorter than her even as she hunches her back. He feels about a dozen times smaller, a pichu in a thievul’s thicket. 

He rushes into the depths of the Tangle for cover.

" _ Allister! _ " she shouts, stance squared and unafraid. She wields her umbrella not like a cane, but a sword, even when its primary purposes are aesthetic and "accidentally" smacking the shins of disrespectful whippersnappers.

Allister turns around, expression completely covered by his mask. It's just as likely to be fear as betrayal, inescapable sorrow as acute self-hatred. He focuses the swirl of negative emotions purely on himself. Nobody else is even slightly related to the cause of this hurt and ire. You aren't meant to hurt other people, even when you want to make something hurt as bad as you do, to make  _ someone  _ understand the heartache boiling over in your chest. The pressure demands to be released. It's only logical, then, to implode.

"…."

"Allister," she spits plainly, beckoning a response.

" … ?" He tilts his head, if only slightly.

"You mean to tell me that in the sixty-seven years you've been gone, not once did you come to challenge my gym?"

"I didn't think you wanted me to," he mumbles into a sleeve still too big for him, almost certainly avoiding eye contact.

"Now that you're up, you know this can only mean one thing, yeah?"

" … No? "

"Prepare for a gym mission,  _ child _ ." She smirks, something knowing in her eye, something conniving and clever. Or, at present, so certain she is clever, as Allister ducks into the jacket he's wearing as one feeble hope of escape before what he's wrongly assumed will happen next.

It is not Grimmsnarl that comes out of her first pokeball. The cry of a Grimmsnarl does not sound off and echo through the distance, stirring the spritzee to take off in a solid flock.

It's Wheezing.

"You're not. … M-mad?"

"Should I be?" she asks, changing her tone to be as obviously facetious as she can be. He wouldn't believe her if she said her peace directly, but she can't risk the social signals mixing together into the aether.

He squeezes Runerigus's pokeball in his left hand. It was a gift from her, as she travelled, taking one of the yamask he'd bonded with to see the Dusty Bowl for itself. It always paints the outside world so vividly with its stories.

It's been ages since _he's_ fought, let alone his pokemon. He throws the ball in silence, apprehensive.

"Sludge bomb," Opal commands, as smug as ever.

"… Disable."

"Assurance." She has no qualms using a dark-type move, if he's going to be so avoidant that way.

"Earthquake," he says, without changing tone. No, it's the body language that signals the safety is off. The way he glares at her with glowing eyes where shy benefit-of-doubt and mercy would be.

Good.

"First question …."

*

Mawile retreats to its pokeball.

They're neck-and-neck, tit-for-tat, and Allister can't shake the feeling that it's intentional. There's no way he's consistently matching up to a seasoned gym leader, and especially not when he's just woken up. He can hardly think straight as it is. His plays are predictable, particularly for someone who knows him about as well as he knows himself, so she is letting him believe he can keep up.

But why?

She has nothing to gain. He has nothing to give her, not even the traditional prize money, and the bitterness of defeat will only get more intense with the seed planted firmly in your head that you stood a chance.

They're each down to their last pokemon, save Allister's loyal Sinistea, who is currently sitting at the sideline with Mimikyu. The two might be bickering, might be taking bets, and either way have mutually agreed to stand aside and watch these fireworks. There's only one conclusion he can draw about what must happen next, but he can never truly prepare himself for it. The bile builds in the back of his throat, the gutwrenching sensation of writhing anxiety threatening to tear him apart. He is afraid. She knows that he is so, so deathly afraid.

He will not give her the satisfaction of seeing him break down in tears again.

_ Go, Grimmsnarl. _

_ Go, Gengar. _

There's something so cathartic about sending out Gengar, out of everyone, one of your oldest companions and resident Hellmouth Portal. It's taller than you are, but neither of you seem to mind; it's grown so much, and always insists it doesn't mind protecting you. Not after you gave it a chance, not after you put up with brushing out its poisonous spines, not when you listen where others flinch away and roll their eyes and keep on walking by. Gengar tells you it's happy to be a friend of yours.

Allister is fully aware that Grimmsnarl, particularly this Grimmsnarl, is not a monster. It is as much a pokemon as his Gengar, but still the ringlet glow that lights its eyes in the darkness stabs through his heart until it runs cold. You know it isn't out for blood. You know even if it were, it can't actually hurt you now.

It's still harder to think rationally.

"Shadow Ball."

"Really?"

"... Sure."

"Then we'll give it a False Surrender."

Grimmsnarl's body lurches, feigning weakness, practically creaking. He has seen this move before.

Opal nearly thinks twice seeing the way Allister clings to his mask, practically crumpling in on himself, maybe it is too much. You can't turn the child off of battling forever.

But he's come so far, she can't let him stall to a stop now. He has to snap out of it.

"Allister."

"... ,"

"Allister, I still have one more question for you."

"... ?"

"Think carefully now, got it?"

He nods, gripping the sides of his mask so hard his knuckles turn white.

"How old am I?"

He practically does a double take, tilting his head for emphasis. Opal could move now, if she wanted, one last strike to finish it all, but she lets him catch his breath instead. It's a sort of panic-attack-adjacent phase where you don't quite think before you speak, or even become fully cognizant of the fact you've spoken at all until you hear boisterous laughter.

"Here I'd thought you were a little more mature than that," she smiles.

Gengar's stats have sharply increased.

Laughter, it happens, is contagious. He can't stop himself from smiling too.

"... D-dazzling Gleam!" he stutters, finally leaving his mask be and instead swinging around his jacket sleeves idly. It's a trick he'd learned from Opal, from the fairies of the Tangle, and now.

Now it finishes off a Grimmsnarl.

Gengar, tired as it may be, runs over and scoops him up before Allister can say a word. He awkwardly pats it on the head until it's satisfied.

"... Uh. T-thanks. I guess. ... That was. Nice."

"I should think so. You're stronger than you realize, Allister, truly you are."

"... Strong enough for a gym badge?"

"Hmm. Can't say I have one on me, but I did scrape up something better."

Opal grins, in that quasi-fiendish way she does, and slowly unfurls a purple ribbon from her palm. It's tied tightly around a smoothed, ivory-white ball. What was once a shard with sharp edges has been reshaped. It falls into Allister's cupped hands, and stays there. No phasing through.

"You... kept it."

"I did."

"...."

Allister puts on his new necklace, the shard of his former body offering him freedom beyond the Tangle at last. He runs up to her and hugs her as tight as he can manage, though he's only barely corporeal at the moment.

"How did y... ."

"Trial and error, child."

He winces, concealed behind the safety of his mask. He forces a smile. "And you were gonna make me  _ fight you for it _ ?"

"... No, but it's more fun this way. Besides, you could stand some excitement every once in a while. ...Maybe more often than that."

"I didn't mean to! It's not like I tried to sleep so long, I just... ." Allister keeps his head down.  _ Didn't feel like getting back up? _

"It's over now, Alli. You're here, and you can do as you please, alright? But I think the trainer’s life might suit you, this is the liveliest you've been in ages."

Allister takes this moment to blink. Blink. And slowly, realize, he is literally clinging to Opal. He shuffles back a few steps, a solid nod. Even if it's embarrassing as all get-out, it's a far cry from feeling so _dead inside_ alone in the woods.

" ... Maybe I will."

“Stow-on-side’s leader is looking for a successor,” she lets her eyes drift towards the canopy, imagining the possibilities. “...  _ If _ you’re willing to fight for it. Then you’d be having fights like that almost every night.”

His eyes catch the glow of the mushrooms, filling up with the stars themselves. 

“Yeah. Yeah, I think I’d like that.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the record, when I wrote this chapter I was convinced Opal lowered your stats no matter what you told her that her age was. Obviously there is only one answer that is not correct, but she also can't just not give you points for it.


	3. To Bloom in the Bitter Snow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things are no longer left unsaid.
> 
> Friends reconcile.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Some flowers bloom/  
> Where the green grass grows/  
> Our praise is not for them/  
> But the ones who bloom in the bitter snow/  
> We raise our cups to them"  
> -We Raise Our Cups, Hadestown (2019)

"Opal...." you start, the light Saturday morning breeze brushing past the window frame of the oldest cottage in Ballonlea. It's the second Saturday of its kind, second of hundreds, and yet it's simultaneously been about seventy years in the making. It takes all your resolve not to back away from the thought, gripping Polteageist's handle like you'll phase through the floor if you don't.

You might anyway.

"... I'm sorry." You sigh without elaborating, thoughts swimming and spiraling in a maelstrom of doubt. It was ridiculous to bring this up. She probably doesn't even remember, and it might not even _matter anymore_ , anyways. Just apologize, and maybe that slow drainage in your brain, and that meandering venom filling up your chest, and the liquid fire of fear scaling your spine like stepping stones will disappear. If you take responsibility for it all, it'll be easier.

"Whatever for, dear?" Opal looks concerned, or at the very least is feigning ignorance. For having existed so long, you truly know so little about the Fair Ones, and she could well _actually_ be reading your mind.

"... just sorry." You stare into the multicolored film glazing your polteageist's tea as though it will exonerate you from the entire mistake of a confrontation you've stirred in less than a complete sentence.

"It's never _just_ sorry, Alli." She sips her own tea, chess master by design, and you would very much like to backpedal right back to your hole in the ground in the woods and sleep the until the whole region has come to crumble around you in the distant future. She knows _damn well_ what you mean, then, and won't let you out of her snare until you say it.

You set down your teacup and let go of Polteageist, much to its surprise. You know that if you'd stayed semi-corporeal you'd already have been sick.

You outright refuse to raise your head to look at her, then, your mask all that separates you from the glare of her judgement. It has many functions, but now mainly acts as your armor. Instead of looking at you she's faced with her slightly distorted reflection.

It's not quite bad enough to call out Mimikyu, not yet. The part of you that's pretending you've grown is swallowing back the pressure bubble that's threatening to tear you in half if you don't do something about it.

Pressure is the best way you can think of it, anyway. It's some kind of emotion, one that's simulating sensation to your quasi-nerves, a weight in the pit of your stomach that electrifies a non-existent heart rate. You want to flee, you _want_ to duck and cover, but instead you sit there analyzing the sensation. You haven't given it a name yet, but you recognize it. If you still had your entire body, it'd likely be so intense it'd overwhelm you. Now, you're mildly bewildered by your own reactions to this lingering thing you want to say, have _needed_ to say for seventy years. 

"I'm sorry about your mum," you start, a little nod. Yes, that's right. That's what this was about.

_Tell me, Allister, tell me true,_

She was so angry. She didn't mean it, and you _know_ that. Except, you know in equal measure, some part of her _did_ mean it. Some part of her meant it _tenfold_ , and only held back to spare your fragile little perpetually-adolescent feelings.

_What the hell is the point of you?_

"but. Y-you, you weren't the only one, that'd l-lost people. And wanted them back..." your voice wavers, and you can feel the tears coming on. You do not want them.

"Allister, tha—"

"LET ME TALK."

Opal has never heard you shout before. 

_You_ have never heard you shout before, and you're a little surprised it's happening, yanking at the roots of your hair in lieu of something more stable to grapple with. You think you can name the feeling, now, or at least the one that's taken its place.

Rage. You are feeling rage, rage and spite. You can feel your toes curl up in your shoes, your shoulders mesh together, your hands balled into fists and eyes threatening to pop out of your skull entirely, because you want. No, you _need, to scream_ . You need to scream at something, at some _body_ , or at least let go of the sob that's worked its way to the top of your head before it forces its way out instead.

You are a vengeful phantom, in this moment, subsisting on hatred. Your energy spreads far from just yourself, the entire cottage shaking as you tremble with your own anxiety-induced headache, and it rattles haphazardly. You don't even realize you're doing it, really. You don't even know what you hate, but you do. You've tried to apply that hate to yourself, to disregard and destroy it, you are under your control and if your control is truly strong enough to be worthy of existing you can take it, but that clearly isn't working. 

It's clear to Opal now, at least.

"YOU... YOU _NEVER_ , L-ET ME, TTALK I WANTED, TO TALK TO HER I DD, I DDIDID I, DID, BUT I CAN'T, AND IF, IF I COULD'VE, YOU T, T-THINK I WOULDN'T TTRY AND FIND THEM? MY FAMMILY. FAMILY, YOU. YOU DON'T GET TO TELL ME, I'M USELESS, A-AND COMPLAIN ABOUT ME, LEAVING AND THEN ACT LIKE NOTHHING HAPPENED, AND YOU'RE THE ONLY PERSON THAT'S EVER BEEN HURT."

"...."

Opal stares at you, bright blue eyes wide even in the wrinkled set of her face. The breeze blows through the zinnias, bulbs of purple hyacinth waving in the breeze. They clack against his headstone. 

" 'cuzz, 'cause it did. It did, and I can't not think about it, and I want it to go away so can't I just be sorry? That I'm still here and the people you cared about aren't?" 

"…," 

You stare back at her, your eyes wide, one hand clasping idly at your collar while the other is confined by your sleeve. You look for malice in those eyes, and anger, frustration, anything that can be redirected at you from across the table. Instead, as usual, when you look into Opal's eyes, you see nothing. She simply defies being read and understood. It's one of her strongest assets in battle, or with the press, but with you the enigmatic nature of fairy trainers is a detriment. She says nothing, and it is terrifying.

She makes one move, just the potential for one muscle to move one micrometer, and you recoil. You know it is useless to try and run, there is no escape from a determined Fae, not even one you used to consider your best friend, so the best you can do is feebly, pathetically cover your masked face with crossed arms and hope you have the constitution to withstand whatever comes next in spite of the inevitability that you don't. You expect a slug to the shoulder, or the chest, or the side of the face, shatter your mask shatter your skull _oh see if that'll phase me again,_ but before she even comes near you your body starts to scatter.

Literally, particles disperse, the particles which _are_ you, or at least the form your soul has taken on this plane. They disperse into the air beyond just being incorporeal, but separating into a fine mist that you struggle to pull back into a you-like shape. You are so busy panicking about putting yourself back together so that you at least have a shoulder to punch that you fail to notice what Opal is actually doing until her feather boa flashes into your line of vision.

She's _hugging_ you.

And, for once in your life-un-life, you don't think that you mind it.

It stays that way, a few awkward minutes, with Opal grasping at air that can barely keep itself contained into a formation that's recognizably human. Your head is over her shoulder, letting you look up at the cream-white ceiling and slow whirling of the fan, round, and round, and round it goes. Two, three, four, breathe. Two, three, four….

"W-w…."

"Take your time, dear."

"Why."

"Why what, Alli?"

"D-don't you, _Alli_ mm-e,e,"

"Okay. I won't."

" _No!_ "

You sob beyond your control, spectral tears floating back up into your eyes instead of falling as mortals' are wont to do. Your tears stay with you until you dispatch them yourself. You would do it immediately, truthfully, if you only understood how. She lets you cry anyway.

"Do you need anything," she says, stalwart and standing a little straighter. _It is time to be an adult_ , in her mind, _handling a troubled youth_ . She is the one with experience in life and love and loss, almost a whole lifetime's worth; the fact that the kid is _Allister_ should hardly make a difference, and yet she finds herself back in the size-sixes of a ten-year-old girl who knows nothing of the sky. "My cottage is yours, you know."

"No…" you choke out the sound, breaths you don't need hitching and sputtering, a malfunctioning engine. "T-hat's not how, h-ow this goes. You're, e s'posed'ta be, bb-be mad at me, and, wwe fight, and…"

"And what good would that do you?"

"I _yelled,_ " you gasp between shivers, like it explains itself.

"And?"

"'m not supposed to, t-tt-o yell. S'posed to be good."

"You've seen me yell plenty, Allister, are you telling me I'm no good?"

"NO!" 

You shiver, you shake even harder, like the roof will cave in over both of your heads sooner rather than later. You catch her smother a preemptive knowing, experience-hardened giggle. That is not how she expected you to react.

She sighs, a tiny nod you can hardly perceive while your physical form threatens to dissolve.

"I wasn't thinking. Back then, I. I wasn't thinking of anybody else or how it would affect them. I certainly wasn't thinking of you," she muses, an expression painting her face that you are too scattered to see. "It's the thing I regret most over my whole life thus far. I was stubborn, and spoiled, and _foolish_ , only thinking of how I felt. Not the welfare of my city. Not the toll I'd taken out on you."

"I didn't… I d-idn't, know, I'm s…" 

"It wasn't your job to understand. It wasn't even your job to try and support me, and there you were anyways. I'm deeply ashamed I never did the same for you." 

"Nuthin' to support," you mutter, which ends up your first mistake. 

"How _dare you._ "

You shrink into her feather boa, trying to hide, only becoming more and more indistinct. Were you focused, sharper in image and mind, you would see the shock and horror written into her expression. She only attempts to hang on tighter, as completely futile as the gesture is.

"Allister, you are not nothing. You have never, been nothing, you have been _patient,_ and _considerate,_ and _empathetic…_ and the best friend I ever had." She takes a breath, eyes closed. There is no room to protest or debate. She's practiced this conversation too many times in the preceding seventy years to dare fumble it now. "The most unabashedly honest person I've ever met. You always stuck to your favorites, even when people called them creepy or evil, always listened when others shunned, you listened to _me_ when I was a classless little spirtfire of a lass and absolutely none of this, _not even a bit of the world we have now_ would have been the same without you."

"…,"

"It's an outright shame, that being so careless, and so. Calloused, and _cruel_ I turned you away from the world for all of this time. It's a _shame_ , Allister, that as soon as you started to live I didn't listen to you. I expected your gift would bend to my will, because I didn't understand. And I can't. I can't make it up to you."

Your ragged breaths turn silent, one hand manifesting just enough to pat her shoulder. You think you can feel her tears soaking the back of your sweater.

"I've tried, while you've been gone, to understand. I can only hope that's enough."

A long moment passes. Opal tries to fit back into her own silhouette, that of the learned and wise, and you. You regain your composure, somewhat. Your molecules are sewn back together by willpower, you wince, breaking the silent streak when you say:

"I don't want to run away anymore."

"… Good."

"I always run away, and it's my fault, 'cuz it's easy. And I don't want to anymore, but it's hard, and I'm sorry that, that I'm not good at it." 

"I'm sorry I'm not good at being a friend."

"We still have now," you offer with a feeble smile. It looks like you'll shatter with so much as a well-angled breeze, but you're whole, again. Almost even solid.

"If you'll put up with me."

"Well, you'll have to put up with me too. If you want. Ought'ta ask permission before I haunt the place, yeah?"

She laughs, the sound hoarse instead of characteristically witchy. You laugh too, in something that sounds more like your chest has been excavated with a pickaxe than anything eerie. You mutually wait to let go until you're positive neither of you will disappear.

"… 'm sorry I yelled."

"It's alright. You weren’t wrong. Besides, I had my doubts that you could. I'm glad you can wail with the best've'em, as far as spirits go."

You pat the feathers of her boa, half-facetious, fascinated that you can actually make physical contact now. Come to think of it, your head is starting to ache. It doesn't go unnoticed.

"Come, child, how's about another cuppa, yeah?"

"Sounds perfect," you mumble, lifting your mask just enough to rub the last vestiges of tears from your eyes. You can't help but smile.

*

Over this new batch of tea, a thought keeps hammering away inside of your skull. You should let a sleeping boltund lie, and yet you have the gall to go at it again. “When you yelled at me,” you start without prompting, looking pensive at your teacup. “You asked me something and I still can’t give you an answer. It’s been decades and I still don’t know.”  
  
“And what’s that, dear?” she seems confused, more than anything, scrubbing away the vestiges of a tear with her long painted fingernails, the claws she refuses to trim.

“What the point of me is.”  
  
“Why, there’s plenty of points to you, Allister, don’t you go off thinking that—”

“No no,” you interrupt, a deep breath before you continue. “I’m not saying there is none. I just don’t know what it _is._ That makes me wanna stay, knowing I should have moved on ages ago by all rights, that I had a life and I. I mucked it up, yeah? And it was over and I should have moved on, but I’m still here. And I want to stay here, with you, and Bea and Milo and Raihan and alla’ them, but some day _they_ are gonna move on and leave me behind them. I thought _you_ had, for a long time, and I just….”

“Allister, look at me,” she says. You look at her. “You won’t be alone like that again, yeah? All of the gym leaders are here to support you, even if you decide not to be one of us anymore. There’s no switch you can flip to make everyone leave, you know, even if they aren’t as close… unless _you_ leave _them._ ”

“I don’t want to run away anymore.”

“I should hope not.”

"I didn't mean to run away from you. I, I came back, once, but. Nobody was home, I should have. B-been, braver, should have kept. Kept trying. But I felt really tired inside, and I didn't. It's not fair."

"You. Came back?" she blinks, in awe.

"Yeah. It, you had such a hard time, back then, they. They asked so much of you. I'm sorry they asked so much of you." 

She covers your hand with hers, a smile. Sincere, you're sure. "Thank you. It's no excuse for the way I acted, but… thank you. For saying so." 

"'s just the truth." 

She sits up. "When you say you felt ' _so tired inside'_ , does that. _Usually,_ happen? You aren't going to go sleeping another century on me now, are'ya? You've been making yourself tangible an awful lot, lately…."

"Nn. No, it's not. It's not the same. It's like. Like your chest feels heavy? And your head gets foggy…."

"That sounds like depression."

"Oh," you say, with no idea what that's supposed to imply. "Okay. Depression, then."

She doesn’t seem reassured when you use this new word she’s given you. You almost ask if you’ve done something wrong, only for her to chime in: "You only did the best you could. Nobody taught you how to deal with feelings like that." She looks you in the eye, though she speaks more for herself. ( _He is still a child,_ she struggles to remember, _he is still so young with so much to learn_.)

"I can figure them out now?" you offer, without a clue where to start. 

She relaxes in her chair somewhat, glancing at the ceiling. “I suppose you don’t _have_ to,” she shrugs, taking another sip of tea. “Don’t _have_ to do anything, far as I’m concerned. You don’t have to make up a reason to allow yourself to exist, no matter what you tell yourself.”

You bite the inside of your cheek.

“You don’t have to know what the point of you is. You’re allowed to just. _Figure it out,_ same as anyone else. If you’d told me twenty years ago that I’d ever get it in my head to retire, I'd have thought you mad."

"You're retiring?" you tilt your head, choosing your focus carefully. 

"In a year or two. Haven't quite found the right sort of successor." 

"... Is this all just your way of telling me t—" 

"Oh, _heavens_ no, Alli. You're far too _Purple_ for this town," the words slither, a mockery of disdain. They soften into a smile. "But that's quite alright by me. I happen to like you that way." 

"You're more than Pink enough for the both of us, I think." You join in, your mask's strap a little looser. Less pressure around your head, less force compressing your skull above the ears, less of a persistent headache. Life's a little lighter. 

"Hmm, well. Just a touch never hurt anyone," she winks, and you laugh behind your hand. After a moment, she sets her cup to its saucer. "Allister?" 

"Yeah?" 

"I'm glad you came back." 

"... So am I."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd been wondering why Allister's number is a pun on "hateful". I imagine a lot of it is internal.
> 
> To scar is something irreparable, but something with a degree of permanence (however ultimately finite it may be). It is no coincidence the year the two squabble is the year Allister is finally marked with a grave. 
> 
> \- Hyacinth (purple): sorrow, I'm sorry, please forgive me  
> \- Zinnias (mixed): thoughts of (in remembrance of) an absent friend  
> 

**Author's Note:**

> "Hades is king of the scythe and the sword/  
> He covers the world in the color of rust/  
> He scrapes the sky and scars the earth/  
> and it comes down heavy and hard on us"  
>  \- Epic Pt. II, Hadestown (2010)


End file.
